Most Important Problem

Percentage of Americans Mentioning Economy as Most Important Problem

Party That Can Do Better Job of Handling Most Important Problem

What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today? [Open-ended]

	*Recent trend:*	Mar 4-7, 2010	Feb 1-3, 2010	Jan 8-10, 2010

	ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (NET)	66	72	57
1	Unemployment/Jobs	31	31	22
2	Economy in general	24	31	25
3	Federal budget deficit/Federal debt	8	11	6
4	Lack of money	5	6	5
5	High cost of living/Inflation	1	1	1
6	Corporate corruption	1	2	1
7	Taxes	1	1	1
8	Recession	1	1	1
9	Gap between rich and poor	*	1	*
10	Fuel/Oil prices	*	*	1
11	Foreign trade/Trade deficit	*	*	*
12	Wage issues	*	1	*

	NON-ECONOMIC PROBLEMS (NET)	49	57	62
1	Poor healthcare/hospitals; high cost of healthcare	20	23	18
2	Dissatisfaction with government/Congress/politicians;	10	10	11
	poor leadership; corruption; abuse of power
3	Wars/War (nonspecific)/Fear of war	4	4	6
4	Ethics/Moral/Religious/Family decline; dishonesty	4	2	3
5	Education/Poor education/Access to education	2	4	3
6	National security	2	4	4
7	Environment/Pollution	2	1	1
8	Situation/War in Iraq	2	2	2
9	Lack of respect for each other	2	1	2
10	Terrorism	2	4	8
11	Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness	1	3	1
12	Immigration/Illegal aliens	1	3	3
13	Welfare	1	*	*
14	Foreign aid/Focus overseas	1	2	1
15	Situation/War in Afghanistan	1	2	1
16	Care for the elderly/Medicare	1	1	1
17	Lack of military defense	1	1	*
18	Crime/Violence	1	1	2
19	Children's behavior/way they are raised	1	1	*
20	Energy/Lack of energy sources	1	1	1
21	Judicial system/Courts/Laws	1	1	1
22	International issues/problems	*	*	1
23	Unifying the country	*	*	1
24	Gay rights issues	*	*	--
25	Social Security	*	1	1
26	Abortion	*	1	*
27	Drugs	*	*	*
28	Race relations/Racism	*	1	*
29	Elections/Election reform	*	*	*
30	Overpopulation	*	*	*
31	The media	*	*	*
32	Guns/Gun control	*	--	*
	Natural disaster response/Relief	--	1	--
	War/Conflict between Middle East nations	--	*	1

	Other non-economic	2	1	2

	No opinion	1	3	2

	Total	139%	168%	143%
* Less than 0.5%

Which political party do you think can do a better job of handling the problem you think is most important -- the Republican Party or the Democratic Party?

	Republican	Democratic	Other party/ No difference/ No opinion
	%	%	%
2009 Aug 31-Sep 2	34	45	20
2008 Sep 8-11	39	46	14
2007 Sep 14-16	30	47	22
2006 Sep 7-10	34	49	16
2005 Sep 12-15	39	40	21
2005 Jan 3-5	41	41	18
2004 Sep 13-15	46	43	11
2004 Jan 12-15	39	46	15
2002 Jul 26-28	38	36	26
2001 Jan 10-14	39	39	22
1999 Jan 15-17	33	43	24
1998 Apr 17-19	40	42	18
1997 Jan 10-13	33	43	24
1996 Jul 25-28	37	41	22
1996 May 9-12	40	44	16
1995 Jan 16-18	42	32	26
1994 Oct 22-25	41	37	22
1994 Aug 15-16	38	37	25
1994 Aug 8-9	39	37	24
1994 Jul 15-17	39	32	29
1994 Jan	31	39	30
1993 Sep 10-12	31	37	32
1993 Jan 8-11	29	45	26
1992 Mar 26-29	34	40	26
1991 Jul 11-14	36	28	36
1991 Mar 7-10	40	27	33
1990 Oct	30	29	41
1988 Sep	38	33	29
1988 May 9-11	27	40	33
1987 Apr 10-13	29	37	34
1986 Jan 10-13	33	28	39
1985 Jan 25-28	39	29	32
1984 Aug 10-13	39	37	24
1984 Feb 10-13	30	32	38
1983 Nov 18-21	28	35	37
1982 Aug 13-16	26	35	39
1981 Jan 8-11	39	20	41
1980 Mar 28-31	28	32	40
1979 Oct 12-15	25	33	42
1976 Apr 23-26	18	39	43
1975 Oct 17-20	15	42	43
1972 Aug	28	34	38
1968 May	30	28	42
1964 Apr 24-29	16	40	44
1960 Feb 4-9	24	32	44
1956 Sep 20-25	55	45	--